


lifegiver

by foundCarcosa



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Character Turned Into Vampire, Dawnguard, Exsanguination, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2533028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erandur had always given everything he had to Llovyn. So it must be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lifegiver

**i.**

It was supposed to be simple. Bed down in Solitude the night before. Wait at the docks the next day. Llovyn would be along soon, without a doubt.

Erandur went to sleep with his hands twitching, fingertips rubbing together, anticipating stroking the thick greying strands of Llovyn’s hair.

**ii.**

The world was red and pulsing, an eternal wound that made Llovyn’s teeth ache. He staggered down the walkway, fingertips digging into the stone railing.

Everything ached. Within. Without. From his scalp, itching at the feel of the cloud-obscured sun, to his feet, toes curling in his worn leather boots. From his nerves, frayed and sizzling, to his brain cells, neurons misfiring dangerously as he became nothing but hunger, walking — no, _shambling_ hunger.

And _this_ was the power Lord Harkon spoke of? This... helplessness, this infirmity? This _horror?_

 _Help me,_ he prayed, with the last of his awareness. _Sithis… Akatosh… Auri-El? Help me…_

 

**iii.**

Erandur tied his hair back with a thin thong and turned his face up to the autumn breeze. He didn’t wear priest’s robes anymore, but he still wore robes — of dun, and olive drab, or of rich reddish-brown with tan embroidery when he wanted a flashier touch.

He wore the reddish-brown ones today, because Llovyn had once remarked upon them.

The day was mild, but he was still chilled. He would be warmer under Llovyn’s gaze. The mer he’d helped, not with magic or the healing arts, but with the heart he’d nearly forgotten he’d owned.

He saw sails in the distance, and smiled.

**iv.**

To Llovyn’s hunger-coloured vision, they sailed into Solitude on blood instead of water.

The docks were calm at this hour; save for sailors and deckhands, who all but ignored him, the place was nearly deserted.

But he smelled life, vibrant life, life he recognised in some dim abandoned part of his roiling mind. It came towards him, speaking, but all Llovyn heard was the beating of a heart much like his own.

When warm skin touched his, he struck.

**v.**

Something was wrong.  
He’d known it as soon as Llovyn staggered towards shore, not at all composed, not at all himself. But Erandur had seen him sick, had seen him near death, and Erandur was not afraid.

"Llovyn!" he hailed, hoping his voice would rouse the other Dunmer. "You look _terrible,_ love.” He smiled, hoping for a customary scowl from Llovyn, one that would soften into a grudging snort of mild amusement. _No kidding,_ he’d mutter. _I've just been to Oblivion and back. But you've_ always _been ugly, so what's your excuse?_ And so it would go, as it always did.

But Llovyn latched onto him with eyes the colour of old blood, wild eyes, unseeing eyes. And suddenly, Erandur was afraid.

**vi.**

"Please, Llovyn. Stop, now. Stop. _Please,_ Llovyn.”

Erandur curled his fingers into Llovyn’s overcoat, but his legs were water and softest meat, and he sank down to the warm grass, pulling the mer down with him.

"I— I can’t— Llovyn, lover, you must… stop…"

His entire neck was fire and light; Llovyn’s teeth sunk in deep and his mouth pulled draught after draught of lifeblood from Erandur’s artery. There had been a moment of blazing ecstasy, where Erandur had cried out and pressed in close and arched his neck in surprised fervour, but that moment had long passed, and now there was nothing but a creeping coolness, and a creeping darkness.

And Llovyn would not stop.

There had been a time, not too long ago, when Llovyn had only known clarity for moments at a time, when his rheumy eyes had stared up at the night sky for hours on end because he could do nothing else, when he’d wept in frustration to know that once he’d been erudite, once he’d seen far, once he had been whole… and Erandur had suffered, wanting to help him but unable to scratch the surface of the poison that was stealing Llovyn’s being.

"Llo…vyn." He wanted to say, _it is all right. I gave you everything I could give, because you needed me. And now I give you this, because you need me. It is all right._

But the darkness had already closed in.  
 _So it must be._

**v.**

The water was not blood. It was water. Clear and sparkling in the waning sunlight.

And those shouts were not background din. They were the shouts of Solitude guardsmen. Someone had seen what he’d done.

What he’d done. Erandur was limp and heavy in his grasp. _Erandur?_

"Eran…dur….?" Dimly he shook the blood-soaked mer, whose head lolled and whose eyes stared unseeingly up at him. Knowing eyes, in an unperturbed face. Perhaps that was what was worst about it all.

The Solitude guardsmen were closing in, training arrows at him, shouting orders.

"He is not upset with me," Llovyn murmured, unheard, as they captured him, hauling him away.

"He is not upset with me…"


End file.
